Family reality
by Anton Zuiker on February 28, 2025
On my way to and from soccer Wednesday evening, I listened to Alternate Realities, a three-episode report from NPR podcaster Zach Mack about a bet with his father as to which of 10 conspiracy theories would come true in 2024. I found this to be an enlightening story. It’s a sad story, too. And it hit so close to home. Here’s the two-minute series intro:
Fussy and fit
by Anton Zuiker on February 22, 2025
Oliver is on a winter soccer team called the Spartans. They had their first match today as part of a tournament in Burlington. Oliver played on the defensive line and he was very strong, but the team lost and in the final minutes he seems to have broken a toe.
Back at home, while I used the last of the daylight to prepare the spot where I’ll be building a new chicken run, Erin made shrimp scampi as consolation meal for Oliver. After dinner, I grabbed a jar of my cherry pie filling and whipped up a cherry crisp. I followed the apple crisp recipe in Betty Crocker’s 40th Anniversary Edition cookbook—I think Erin’s mom gave this to me and Erin when we were married in 1996—and was intrigued by this note at the top of the instructions:
Apple Crisp is an American classic that uses our abundance of native apples in a luxurious-tasting, no-fuss dessert. During World War II when food rationing was in effect, this patriotic crisp was featured as “easy on shortening and sugar.”
When the cherry crisp came out of the oven, we took bowls of the deliciousness upstairs to finish watching The Six Triple Eight about the 855 members of the all-Black battalion of the US Women’s Army Corps that managed a backlog of 17 million items at the end of the war. I salute their skill and accomplishment, their pride and perseverance.
I’m under no illusions tonight: it’s been a pleasant Saturday for soccer and a peaceful evening for history and sweets, but there is a battle raging for fairness and equity.
Another marker
by Anton Zuiker on February 17, 2025
On Saturday, Erin and I attended the unveiling of a second marker to recognize the horrible history of lynching in Orange County, North Carolina (and across the United States of America). This marker, next to the historic old courthouse in Hillsborough, pays tribute to Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Daniel Morrow. They were killed in 1869.
This marker, and the one in Carrboro that honors Manly McCauley, are the work of the Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition in coordination with the Equal Justice Initiative. Erin serves on the OCCRC and we visited EJI and the Legacy Sites last year.
The ugly face of racism is before us again, and still. You may take away the language of fairness and love, but we will not give up this fight.
Tattered and blue
by Anton Zuiker on February 15, 2025
In his blog post yesterday, Studio Notes #19, Dan Cederholm links to a video interview of the actor Walton Goggins talking about a few meaningful objects, including a particular favorite book.
I nearly jumped out of my seat when he held up a blue, tattered, paperback edition of Herman Hesse’s novel, Siddhartha. It’s also one of my favorite books from a time when I actually read whole books. I have that exact same paperback. And it deserves a re-read.
I also have a copy of Siddhartha, and still the folded pink detention slip that a high school teacher gave me at the time I was first reading the book. I blogged about it in 2006.
My other favorite paperback, this one with a cover in lighter Carolina blue, seems to have gone missing; I must have lent One Hundred Years of Solitude to a friend or relative in the last few years. I purchased a used copy recently and planned to read it again (fourth time?) but I think instead I’ll read the shorter Hesse novel about contemplation and listening, which feels like it will pair perfectly with Pico Iyer’s Aflame (as I suggested in this recent post, I did get back to the bookstore to get this).
While I was reading Cederholm’s post, watching Goggins’s interview, and holding my 1980s copy of Siddhartha, I also was waiting for a dear friend to arrive in Chapel Hill. Khaled Khan, my high school friend and Colorado hiking partner, had let me know he’d be at UNC-CH with his family for a tour of one of the graduate schools. They came by the house for afternoon tea, and I smiled.
The river dries up
by Anton Zuiker on February 10, 2025
I was bummed to read Dave’s announcement today that he’ll soon shut down the two public instances of his excellent Feedland.
I’ve been using that for the last couple of years to read a host of blogs and news sites; for the moment, you can see the feeds I follow at news.mistersugar.com.
I’ve also used Feedland to offer the Duke River of News, a collection of news feeds from across the university and health system. There’s a way for me to run Feedland on my own server and I may try to attempt that, and if I do get it running, I’ll use it only for my river of news. I’ll most likely end the Duke river as I’m not sure it’s been much use to anyone for quite some time. (I will offer the opml reading list to my communicator colleagues.)
Anyway, my thanks to Dave for this valuable tool (and its predecessors).